Showing all posts in Reviews

this heart of mine by c.c. hunter
publisher february 27th 2018 by wednesday books
goodreads rating: 4.26
“A new heart saved her life—but will it help her find out what really happened to its donor?
Seventeen-year-old Leah MacKenzie is heartless. An artificial heart in a backpack is keeping her alive. However, this route only offers her a few years. And with her rare blood type, a transplant isn’t likely. Living like you are dying isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But when a heart becomes available, she’s given a second chance at life. Except Leah discovers who the donor was — a boy from her school — and they’re saying he killed himself. Plagued with dreams since the transplant, she realizes she may hold the clues to what really happened.

Matt refuses to believe his twin killed himself. When Leah seeks him out, he learns they are both having similar dreams and he’s certain it means something. While unraveling the secrets of his brother’s final moments, Leah and Matt find each other, and a love they are terrified to lose. But life and even new hearts don’t come with guarantees. Who knew living, took more courage than dying?”

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✨ 2 POV’s which is super good and interesting BUT the layout the e-book in made it super confusing for me to figure out when it swapped from Leah to Matt, I didn’t like it.

✨ one minute I was reading a cute and fluffy ya book and the next it was some mystery supernatural thing? Like what was happening? Verrrryyy confused.

✨ very predictable in my eyes, i guess the little plot twist towards the end and i thought the big “reveal” could have been bigger and better.

✨ I liked that leah even with everything that she went through is still a teenage girl. Worrying about if he likes her, what will she wear, does she looks good – especially since there was a time where she never thought that would happen.

✨ yes to the safe sex and waiting till you’re ready in this book, 100% can get behind more young adult books that talk about that.

✨ book club nerdiness? Yes please.

Overall, this was an enjoyable but predictable book but I would recommend it if you don’t mind reading something where you guess some of the big twists.

let the sky fall by shannon messenger
published 5th march 2013 by Simon pulse

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i feel like i’m reading a lot of 3 star books lately and it’s pretty sucky, not gonna lie. I’m still not sure how i feel about this just yet, like i don’t love it and i wouldn’t say i hate it, i’m just left somewhere in-between which doesn’t mean this is a bad book at all.

one of our main character is vane, half the time i thought he was good and the other half i thought he was a complete idiot. i felt like he had the most personality out of all the characters, and i liked that he sounded like a teenage guy instead of transforming into some hero who knew all the answers. that being said he is also so annoying and is obsessed with Audra and the idea of her wearing skimpy clothes? like please give it a rest, it was funny the first time but i don’t need to hear about it every other chapter, please stop 🙂

“We were two broken, incomplete people. Now we’re one. No one will ever understand me the way she will. No one will ever understand her the way I will.”

Audra who is our second main character (it’s from two POV’s) i didn’t really like. it thought she was very one dimensional and lacking in personality, i don’t know if she was made that way because of all the guilt she feels because of what happened that day so she became sort of one dimensional because of that fact but i don’t know, i just didn’t really like her very much. she bugged me a lot, like so much. i felt like considering she was supposed to be vane’s guardian to make sure he was looked after and to help with with his new powers it was very much “about her” and it was super frustrating.

as for the romance other than the fact it was a whole bucket load of insta love i also saw no chemistry between the pair? like what did they see in each other i just didn’t get it. Vane was practically in love with her before he even met her which i thought was bloody ridiculous but whatever.

“Infinite possibilities. And none of them matter.
What matters is here and now.”

there were a lot of good things about this book, the general wind power thingy (I’m not sure if it has an actual name for it???), that bit was awesome and the battle and the idea of the world sort of ending if the bad guys win was so interesting, that bit made me want to continue reading because it was super interesting.

overall it wasn’t an awful book, there were a few bad tropes in it that i didn’t really enjoy and i’m not sure if I’m going to carry it on but we’ll see! 🙂

the unbecoming of mara dyer by michelle hodkin
published september 27th 2011 by simon & schuster

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okay, so this book has a lot of hype around it, good and bad and i’ve had it on my tbr since may 24th 2015 and im finally reading it now, it’s only taken me NEARLY 3 YEARS, so yeah i was a little worried on if i would like it or not because my tastes have changed as i’ve gotten older but this was sooooo good it really surprised me just how much i enjoyed this.

okay so our main character is mara and she was okay as far as main characters in a ya book go, she wasn’t the most annoying i have read about but she was still annoying. i spent most of the book trying to figure her out and i still have no clue what she is or how she can do what she can do, it is some really weird ptsd side effect that’s been created or is it something creepy and supernatural or maybe she is really dead??? the latter, of course, wouldn’t make any sense but i’m going to throw my ideas out there. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

“Thinking something does not make it true. Wanting something does not make it real.”

i could write a whole review on noah shaw because he made this book for me, i am officially in love with him he is hot and british and there is just so much more i want to find out about him, i feel like he fits mara quite nicely and he truly cares about her, mood swings and all. also, he is super charming and charismatic with a great hint of sarcasm and i think if he wasn’t in this book i’d probably have stopped reading it a long time ago, or you know i probably wouldn’t have carried on the series but i can’t wait to get my hands on the second book.

the romance in this book was super cute, it wasn’t the whole wham bam were are soulmates who were destined to be with each other and i loved you from the second i laid my eyes on you. nooo, this was a bit of a slow burn romance but it sets the way for no doubt lots of love-y dove-y cutesy stuff in the never few books between mara and noah (it better anyway).

“You’re mistaking bitter animosity for heartfelt affection.”

after ending on a cliffhanger THAT I DIDN’T EXPECT, i mean usually i think i’m quite good at predicting things but that was one that i never even thought of. i love it and hate it when a book lands on a cliffhanger, especially when i’m poor and have to wait till next payday to buy any more books 🙁 🙁 🙁

basically, this book was a lot better than i anticipated it to be, it had a few cliches that comes with young adults books (especially ones written so long ago) but i’m so glad that i kept it on my goodreads shelf and i’ve finally gotten around to reading it. i need more noah shaw now 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider
Published May 26th 2015 by Katherine Tegen Books.

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Okay, I feel like I should confess that I didn’t know what this book was about when I picked it up, I think it has just been one of those books that had been sitting on my shelf for far too long and it was finally time to pick it up. So, I was shocked to find out it was about terminally ill teens, the last book I read like that which was The Fault in Our Stars and I loved that so I had hopes that this would be a sweet, heart-breaking story.

This book is about teenagers suffering with TB, we see this from two different perspectives from Sadie and Lane who both suffer from TB, we follow their journey in Latham and watch them develop a relationship and sadly, I didn’t feel like I was very devoted to watched their relationship evolve, if anything I found it a little bit boring. I did enjoy the characters on their own (okay, not all of them), I especially loved the idea of Latham and seeing different sides of how teenagers feel, there is even one bit of the book when we get to read about what it was like for one person going back to ” normal society” and how they were treated.

“That’s all you can do in this world, no matter how strong the current beats against you, or how heavy your burden, or how tragic your love story. You keep going.”

I much preferred Lane as our main character to Sadie, I like how he was still trying to keep up with school, trying to keep out of trouble as he really wanted to go home, until Sadie and her friends let him into their clique. Sadie was an okay character, I just didn’t understand why she risked doing something of the things she did when she was very lucky to be having the care and treatment that not everybody can have.

Overall this book was okay, it was a bit predictable at times, I liked Lane and I really enjoyed the whole idea of Latham and seeing how different these people were treated outside of Latham was quite a shock for me and incredibly eye opening. Robyn Schneider has amazing writing and I will be reading some of her other work in the future.

Okay, I need to say that this is a good book, the writing is absolutely breath-taking and the world that has been created just blew me away, like I was surprised by just how much this world and it’s dark and creepy fairy tales captivated me.

I think if this book was just set in Hinterland I probably would have rated it higher as that’s what I did expect from it but a lot of it was set in New York with Ella and Alice on the road. ALSO, it was so, so, so slow. Like the pacing in the first half was ridiculous and I was bored, I hate being bored while reading a book but I was.

“Look until the leaves turn red, sew the worlds up with thread. If your journey’s left undone, fear the rising of the sun.”

Then there were the characters and other than Finch who we didn’t get to see that much of really I didn’t like any of the characters and some of them weren’t really in it long enough or we didn’t find out much about them for me to really care, which is a shame since some of them had potential to be so unique and interesting.

The second half is where it picks up a bit as we get to see the Hinterland and lots of different fairy tales and that was pretty cool, we also got to meet some other character but like I said before they all fell a little flat.

“We were each our own island, gathered together into one messed-up archipelago.”

As for the ending I just wanted something more?

I wasn’t as impressed with this book as I thought I would be but the story and the writing I can’t deny how good that was, the fairy tales although incredibly creepy at times were amazing and I just wish we had more of them!

Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth.The first book in the Carve the Mark series.468 Pages.My rating – 3*/5*

‘In a galaxy powered by the current, everyone has a gift.

Cyra is the sister of the brutal tyrant who rules the Shotet people. Cyra’s current gift gives her pain and power — something her brother exploits, using her to torture his enemies. But Cyra is much more than just a blade in her brother’s hand: she is resilient, quick on her feet, and smarter than he knows.

Akos is the son of a farmer and an oracle from the frozen nation-planet of Thuvhe. Protected by his unusual currentgift, Akos is generous in spirit, and his loyalty to his family is limitless. Once Akos and his brother are captured by enemy Shotet soldiers, Akos is desperate to get this brother out alive — no matter what the cost.

Then Akos is thrust into Cyra’s world, and the enmity between their countries and families seems insurmountable. Will they help each other to survive, or will they destroy one another?’

I was very sceptical of picking this book up because of the controversy surrounding this book regarding race, chronic illness and self harm so I wasn’t really sure that this book would be something that interested me but I loved the first two Divergent books and I brought this book when it first came out as it was the first thing Veronica Roth had written in forever so I was super excited to pick it up but all in all I just wasn’t impressed with this books. It was slow paced, boring and predictable.

I didn’t dislike this book exactly I just wasn’t really impressed with it as a whole – there were some things I enjoyed about this book and some things I didn’t.

“You want to see people as extremes. Bad or good, trustworthy or not. I understand. It’s easier that way. But that isn’t how people work.”

THINGS I LIKED
⚫ POWERS ARE COOL. Not all of theirs are cool of course but I think Vas’ may be my favourite, never being able to feel pain (BYE BYE STOMACH CRAMPS).
⚫ Instead of the girl being a damsel in distress and the guy being the strong saviour it’s almost like the roles are reversed for Cyra and Akos. Cyra is the tough strong one who’s had a difficult life and Akos is more like a gentle soul.
⚫ There are some good action scenes but I felt like they were rushed and were over far too soon, I wish that more time had been spent on those scenes as the book would have been a bit more enjoyable then.
⚫ I liked Cyra – Maybe not all the time but I liked her she was flawed and it made her feel more real too me; she was far from perfect.

THINGS I DIDN’T REALLY LIKE

⚫ This book may be a bit too long considering there wasn’t much action in it, at times it dragged a lot and I found myself loosing interesting quite easily ☹
⚫ There was too much detail in some areas and nowhere enough in others which was super annoying.
⚫ The “Villain” was boring, I wanted him to be more evil and scarier but he just ended up falling a little flat.
⚫ The romance (this should be shocking coming from me as I love romance), but I just felt it was boring and forced and not for me.
⚫ I was a little confused about the world, I didn’t really understood how it worked and found I had stopped being interested in finding it out pretty quickly so I ended up just going with the flow :’D

“I didn’t choose the blood that runs in my veins, any more than you chose your fate. You and I, we’ve become what we were made to become.”

Overall, as a fan of her other work I wish that I hadn’t actually picked this up, I felt like I was constantly comparing the two together. This isn’t exactly a bad book but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would, I’m not 100% sure if I will pick up the second book just yet but I do hate not finishing a series once I’ve started!!!

So Near the Horizon by Jessica Koch.The first book in the Danny trilogy.356 Pages.My Rating – 5*/5*

‘From the moment she crosses paths with Danny, Jessica is fascinated. The dashing, confident twenty-year-old has everything she dreams of—looks, success, independence, money—and his kind, infinitely cheerful nature is spellbinding.

Yet Jessica sees something else lingering underneath Danny’s perfect facade. Bit by bit, she manages to pick it apart, unveiling harrowing truths about a deeply traumatic childhood that has left more than just emotional scars. Now, far away from his home and family, he is fighting to build a normal life for himself—even though he may be destined for a future as dark as his past.

Despite all adversity and against all reason, a deep and intimate love develops between Danny and Jessica. But soon they find themselves confronting the harsh realities of a superficial world, battling against prejudice and exclusion at every turn… and, worst of all, racing against time…’

I’ve been sitting on this review for quite a while now because I just don’t know what to say. Seriously, this book was so heartbreakingly beautiful and I loved it way more than I ever thought I would. What makes it worse for me was knowing that this was a true story, that this happened to Jessica, I don’t cry at books that often but I was a crying mess reading the last few chapters of this book.

There is nothing sweet and fluffy about Danny and Jessica’s romantic, it’s hard and painful but it is so full of love – it is one powerful story that’s for sure.

I’m not sure how to write a review without spoiling anything for this book but I’m going to try my best not do give anything too big away but I apologise in advance if I do.

”Someday,” he said, “when I’m not around anymore. When you’re near the horizon, you’ll be near me, too..”

When we first met Danny, I didn’t really like him, he seemed a bit of an arrogant player and I just didn’t really like him very much – but as the story goes on and we learn about his back story it just broke my heart, he had got through so much but I believe it shaped him into an amazing, loving and thoughtful (very stubborn) man who so clearly loved Jessica with all his heart.

Tina is another character who has a terrible back story who is trying to overcome it and be the person who Danny knows she can be.

It’s so lovely to read this book and watch how Jessica impacted on their lives and how they impacted on hers and I highly recommend this to every single person please read this lovely book, you won’t be disappointed!

Thank you so much to Jessica for sending me a copy of her book to review!

‘Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.

Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.

The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?’

I am such a sucker for a cute romance story, like so bad, and although this was very “I love you” very quickly (like they met and he loved her sort of thing) I still found myself falling hopelessly in love with this book from the very beginning – I loved Daniel and Natasha so much it was lovely!

When I first read the synopsis of this book, I will admit that I was a by cynical, how can two people who are such polar opposites of each other meet and fall for each other? Especially since when they did meet they had nothing in common, Daniel had a love for poetry and love while Natasha thought they were both useless things! 💔

I have to admit though, I was rooting for them!

“There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.”

Watching Daniel and Natasha befriend each other was enjoyable, it was obvious to me though the more the story developed how I could see that it as doubtful it would work between them, Daniel was destined towards a path forged by his parents and Natasha was to be deported all thanks to a mistake her father made one night. I loved how Daniel didn’t give up, he wanted to show Natasha that love is a good thing – I liked how Natasha (against her better judgement of course) was beginning to fall for him.

The ending I know is a touchy subject for some people but the ending was my favourite bit! It was believable and I saw it coming as soon as I read a few chapters of the book so I wasn’t surprised but I liked that Nicola Yoon chose to go with that ending. I wished it was a little longer but we can’t have everything can we 😉

Overall if you are a big fan of romance and YA cotemporary than this one will be for you 😊

‘“We were all heading for each other on a collision course, no matter what. Maybe some people are just meant to be in the same story.”

At first, Jude and her twin brother Noah, are inseparable. Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude wears red-red lipstick, cliff-dives, and does all the talking for both of them.

Years later, they are barely speaking. Something has happened to change the twins in different yet equally devastating ways . . . but then Jude meets an intriguing, irresistible boy and a mysterious new mentor.

The early years are Noah’s to tell; the later years are Jude’s. But they each have only half the story, and if they can only find their way back to one another, they’ll have a chance to remake their world. ‘

“Meeting your soul mate is like walking into a house you’ve been in before – you will recognize the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the books on the shelves, the contents of drawers: You could find your way around in the dark if you had to.”

I feel like I read a different book to everyone else?

I picked up this book expecting something that was a nice, easy, fluffy contemporary and got anything but that – it wasn’t an easy book to read, at times it was even depressing, but it did have a lot of redeeming qualities but I just wasn’t keen on the book.

This was the first book by Jandy Nelson that I read so I didn’t know what to expect with her writing style – I ended up not liking it. Yes, I can see why people find it beautiful and it is unique and different to a lot of writing I’ve seen in YA contemporaries but I didn’t like the writing, I found it difficult to read which was a shame ☹

It took me ages to read this, so long and I ended up picking up books to read in-between because I just wasn’t enjoying it as much as I had wanted too. I did at some point feel like giving up but I think halfway through the book I started to enjoy it – I enjoyed Noah’s chapters a lot more than Jude’s so I wish that the whole book was told from Noah’s POV.

This book just dragged a bit for me, I felt like it took too long to get to the exciting bits of the book, the whole however many chapters before the “big incident” just dragged, it was only after we find out what happened that I began to enjoy the book and by then I was halfway through.

I did love how everything began to fit into place towards the end of the book and I enjoyed seeing Jude and Noah develop. I did get used to the writing style towards the end but I’m still undecided if I’ll be picking up anymore of her work after reading this ☹

I’m sure there are loads of people who loved this book and I do say read it! The writing style isn’t for everyone but I can’t deny that it isn’t beautiful.

If you have read this book I would love to hear your thoughts on it!!!!
Did you love it/hate it/weren’t sure on it?

‘Henry Page has never been in love. He fancies himself a hopeless romantic, but the slo-mo, heart palpitating, can’t-eat-can’t-sleep kind of love that he’s been hoping for just hasn’t been in the cards for him—at least not yet. Instead, he’s been happy to focus on his grades, on getting into a semi-decent college and finally becoming editor of his school newspaper. Then Grace Town walks into his first period class on the third Tuesday of senior year and he knows everything’s about to change.Grace isn’t who Henry pictured as his dream girl—she walks with a cane, wears oversized boys’ clothes, and rarely seems to shower. But when Grace and Henry are both chosen to edit the school paper, he quickly finds himself falling for her. It’s obvious there’s something broken about Grace, but it seems to make her even more beautiful to Henry, and he wants nothing more than to help her put the pieces back together again. And yet, this isn’t your average story of boy meets girl. ‘

Our Chemical Hearts was one of those heart wrenching books that leaves an imprint on your heart. It’s about first loves, grief, friendship – told by a witty narrator who I absolutely adore, Henry Page you sweet precious cinnamon roll deserve all the love in the world.

This book was lovely and frustrating at the same time, half the time I was smiling happily because everything was going good and the next time I was getting so frustrated I was almost crying, this book messed with my emotions bad, it was definitely a bittersweet read.

Henry is by far my favourite character in this book, I absolutely loved everything about him, he was witty and awkward and I just love him. Grace is deeply broken over a tragedy that happened in her life before she met Henry. Grace I didn’t like, I’m sorry I couldn’t relate to her what so ever, I didn’t like her at all to be honest, I understood that she was going through so much but I didn’t think that it made it okay for her to treat/m mess around Henry quite as much as she did.

Not only were the main characters well developed as were the side characters, Henry’s best friends and his family were so interested and I loved reading about them, especially his best friends they were so funny 😊

If you are looking for an emotional and though provoking read then this book is for you, although I didn’t love all the characters I still enjoyed this book immensely, the characters are awesome, the writing is captivating and the story is truly something, if you haven’t read this already you should 😊